Monday 22 May 2017

How To Make Your Home Your Own

You can’t choose the space you’re given once you’ve bought a house, but you can choose what you put inside it. Our homes are a badge of our personality, a space that allows us to really show the world who we are and what we value. Many people, however, don’t take the opportunity they have to make their space their own, instead opting to play it safe and follow the crowd. Think of your home as a blank canvas: it’s time to start painting!

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Source: Pexels.com

Paint Your Furniture


Sometimes, it can make the most financial or style sense to buy a piece of furniture that has been mass produced. Still, that doesn’t mean it has to stay in its original condition. Instead, you can get the paintbrush out and add your own style to the furniture. You can walk into a million homes that have more or less the same cupboards and wardrobes; by making a subtle change to your furniture, you’ll be making it stand out from the crowd and be putting your own spin on what was a regular piece. I'm a big fan of Annie Sloane's chalk paint or the beautiful colours from Farrow & Ball.

One of a Kind


You can’t always adjust every piece of furniture to make it perfect for your home. Sometimes, for your home to be your own, you’ll need to buy a custom piece that is tailored just to the needs of your house. You can have many things custom made, from Montgomery made to measure curtains to wall fixtures, from tables to works of art. Getting custom pieces allows you put your own stamp on the essentials of your home, and also lets you pick the right piece that is right for the size, shape, and colour tones of your rooms.

Learn a Few Hacks


If you’re handy with a few tools (or want to learn), then take a look at a few DIY hacks. (YouTube is brilliant for this!) If you’re creative, you’ll be able to repurpose just about any old piece of furniture into something that you put to real use. You can do things like turn an old bed frame into a coat rack, or take an old door and turn into an epic picture board for your hallway. There’s a million and one things you can do, so grab your tools and get to work. My husband Liam turned old wooden wine crates he bought cheaply off eBay into a brilliant shabby chic storage for all my crafty bits and pieces.

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Source: Pexels.com

What are your Passions?


You have passions, so why not incorporate them into your home? Whatever they are, there’ll certainly be a way to include them. For example, if you’re a literature fiend, then creating a cozy reading nook where you can dive into the heavyweights of literature for hours on end will be perfect. You could add a framed Spineless Classic poster of your favourite novel to make it extra quirky! If you’re a music lover, then turn a spare room into a listening center that’s kitted out with records, sound systems, and music posters. Even things you do outside of the home, such as skiing and other sports, can be added to your home by adding some subtly themed features around the house.

Gallery Walls


It’s the really personal items that’ll make your home unequivocally your own. Take a walk around your house: do you have many pictures and mementos that remind you of your friends and family? Create a gallery wall, and you’ll be able to create a space in your home that allows you to have everything that’s close to you right up on the wall. There is an art to getting this right, so take a read of the best practices before you get the project underway. Check out my post all about the gallery wall I recently created in my home.

Rare Finds


Some things won’t be so obviously all about you. Things like antiques and so forth will only reveal their inner connection to you when someone asks about them. If you’re going traveling, make sure you take something home to use in your home. If you do this every time, after a few years you’ll find that the things you use in your home all have a story, a connection to another time of your life. You can easily buy whatever you want from the big home stores; it’s much better to have a real emotional attachment and story to the objects in your home instead.

Get Creative


Ultimately, to make a home that mirrors your personality, you need to get creative and really think about each aspect of your home. Don’t be bogged down by what other people are doing: think instead of how you want your home to look, and go with that. After all, you’re the one who lives there, so why would you design it with anyone but yourself and your family in mind? Think outside the box, and you’ll have a house you’ll be proud to call home.


This is a sponsored post.